The last grand prize of the 2022 US lottery will be drawn this Friday — and there is $685 million at stake. If there is one lucky winner, this would be the fourth largest prize awarded by the Mega Millions lottery.
The lottery Mega Millions will draw its jackpot at 11 pm ET; it is the largest lottery sum ever offered in the US in the last week of the year.
Whoever matches all six numbers will be able to choose between monthly payments or a cash prize of $347.8 million.
The stock increased following no tickets matched the six numbers drawn on Tuesday night: the white balls 9, 13, 36, 59 and 61, plus the golden Mega Ball 11.
The Mega Millions jackpot has surpassed $600 million only five other times in its more than 20-year history.
THE FIVE BIGGEST MEGA MILLIONS PRIZES
- A $656 million prize on March 30, 2012, which set a record at the time for the largest lottery jackpot ever won. Shared by winners in Illinois, Kansas and Maryland, that record stood for nearly four years.
- A $648 million jackpot on December 17, 2013, shared by winners in California and Georgia.
- Nearly five years later, the game surpassed the $1 billion mark for the first time, with a single winner in South Carolina taking home a $1.537 million prize on October 23, 2018. That remains the record Mega Millions jackpot. , although two more awards have been won.
- $1.05 billion, won in Michigan, on January 22, 2021.
- $1.337 million, won in Illinois just on July 29.
In the 21 drawings held since the jackpot was last won on Oct. 14, there have been more than 17 million winning tickets at all prize levels.
These include 40 worth $1 million or more, won in 18 different states from coast to coast: Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia.
Who to tell? How to charge? When to claim your prize? We answer these questions.
In the December 27 drawing, there were 945,697 winning tickets across all prize levels, including five that matched all five white balls to win the game’s second-tier prize. Two of them were sold in California, one in Florida, Georgia and Mississippi.
Across the country, 44 tickets matched four white balls plus the Mega Ball to win the third-tier prize. Three of those tickets are worth $20,000 each, as they included the optional Megaplier (available in most states with an additional $1 purchase), which went 2X on Tuesday night. The other 41 third-tier winning tickets are worth $10,000 each.
Throughout 2022, Mega Millions jackpots of all sizes have been won. There was a staggering $1.337 million win in Illinois on July 29, a $502 million prize on October 14 shared with the winning tickets in California and Florida, and even a $20 million win in Tennessee on April 15.
Other jackpot wins this year were in California ($426 million on January 28), New York ($128 million on March 8) and Minnesota, which grabbed its first Mega Millions jackpot on April 12 with $110 million.
